South
by bethyreddingrocks
Summary: Peter returns to show Valerie what's south of the mountains they used to call home. Please R&R!


**I don't have much to say. This is mostly a recap of the events of Red Riding Hood. The story will develop, but in the mean time please gift me with feedback. **

I wake up bleeding. Weeping and raw cuts trail along my arms, throbbing with a subdued ache akin to migraines. Dried blood is caked under my fingernails, and my throat is chafed and sore from excessive bouts of screaming. I must have had another nightmare. It seems these days they are as integral a part of my routine as breathing. My appearance itself is borderline comical and tragic. At a glance, your first impression of me would be beautiful - skin as fair as porcelain, high cheekbones stained rose pink, shimmering blue eyes that are iridescent in the sunlight. Not to mention my long wavy blonde hair. During the months of summer before the Harvest Moon, the sun bleaches my hair to the pale gold of wheat. My papa, Cesaire, often told me as a little girl that I was really a wood nymph, a striking child of nature who could spin a song as alluring as the warble of a lyre bird . According to Cesaire, I was brought to my family in a wicker basket lined with white rabbit's fur by the Idris Falls, a mighty waterfall that pounds the rocky shores near my childhood home: the village of Daggerhorn.

But if you were analyze my body farther (if I ever let you), you would surely notice the faint white lines crisscrossing my wrists, forearms, and thighs. These markings are all scars, whether old or new, that are all souvenirs from my terror-induced dreams. If what I see in my sleep is especially horrifying, I will claw at my own skin, though I don't understand why I'll subconsciously harm myself. Perhaps because the pain keeps me anchored to reality. Unfortunately, even the most acuminate agony cannot wake me from the nightmares. I'm prisoner of my worst fears (some actually memories) until sunrise.

But I repeat to myself that I don't care don't care don't care. I'm a broken girl, a deranged child who deserves the mistakes of the past to terrorize her slumber. I have to remind myself that it wasn't my fault that most of those I love are dead, but I can't help but feel guilty. The knowledge of the true identity of my father leaves me feeling helpless and violated. For the majority of my life he kept the truth carefully concealed away from me, his own daughter. It certainly doesn't ease the tension that he ruthlessly murdered many innocent villagers. Women. Children. Men who only wanted to protect their families. He didn't care. All he wanted was to keep the werewolf bloodlines flowing. Though I don't ask for them, the images always flash before my eyes - memories of the lifeless carcasses of the people I've known since I was born bleeding out onto the freshly fallen snow. Their eyes are always wide open in fear, bloodshot and bulging out of their sockets.

And I'll always sit rocking in the corner of my grandmother's abandoned house, crying and digging my teeth into my fist until the images retreat from my mind. Oh, and my grandmother's dead, too. Nearly two years ago my father slit his own mother's throat. I found her corpse over by the stove. She had been preparing soup for when I would stop by later. Of course she would've known I'd be hungry, if I hadn't been so stuffed on horror and bullshit. My thoughtful grandmother, always so attuned to my needs. She raised me so much better than my own mother ever did.

Then there's my half-sister Lucy, although she was always a full-blood sister to me in my eyes. On the first snowfall of the winter, the entire village found her sprawled on the ground in the center of the hay repository. Her stomach had been shredded like ribbons. Rusty blood had leaked from the claw marks that extended from her collarbone to her waist. The remains of her pink bodice were tarnished with gore. The Wolf left behind a token of his rage: a severed talon impaled in Lucy's heart. As I sobbed over her dead body, I couldn't help but have felt grateful that her eyes were closed. I would've gone insane if her dark eyes had been vacantly staring into mine, accusing me of stealing Henry away. Pleading to me why she had to be the one to die, so young, so in love. And I also ask myself this. Why hadn't it been me? I wish I could sacrifice my life in place of hers. She was always so much sweeter, so much more compassionate than me. She was the child who gifted baskets of pastries to the elderly, the child who volunteered to clothe and feed orphaned children. I was the selfish child who wanted for nothing except for a dagger to skin the hides off of the rabbits and squirrels that I caught in my amateur snares.

It was my father who killed her out of spite. Lucy was not really his daughter. During the summer of the Flood, my mother, Suzette, had fallen in love with Daggerhorn's blacksmith, Adrien Lazar. He was an intelligent man, with an endearingly sly smile and eyes as blue as snow under the moonlight. I guess I can understand why my mother was attracted to him. Although my mother possessed no love for my grizzly father at the time, she was engaged to him. And despite the vows that commended her to not touch another man until the union in marriage (and then only her husband), she continued to see Adrien, make love to him, and ignore the weight of the wedding band on her slender ring finger. By the time she was married to my father, and slowly coming to realize her love for him, she was already pregnant with Adrien's baby. Out of fear, she pretended the child she was carrying was Cesaire's. She lied to everyone - me, Cesaire, Lucy, Adrien, my grandmother, and the entire village.

As for my father, his demise was merely good riddance. He got exactly what he deserved. Out of my repertoire of nightmares, the dreams about him are always the most frequent. Every detail is vivid. I can taste scents, and the world around me is surrounded by an ethereal silhouette. My nerves will tingle as his ochre fur brushes against my skin, stiff with peaks of dried blood. And then I'm tearing at my arms desperately because I hate hate hate him and he can never touch me again even though he's dead and at the bottom of the lake with stones in his belly. The worst part are his eyes. In his human form they were a tender dark brown, kind, good-humored, reliable. But these soulful, opaque eyes only deceived you of the true beast inside. The Wolf's eyes were a liquid amber, molten and seething with a rage so potent it couldn't be tamed until every drop of blood has been spilled.

On those mornings I still wake up believing I'm my father's little girl, I have to reprimand myself. If I'm feeling especially self-loathing, I'll punish myself by lashing my wrists with a currant bush branch until they sting so much to the point where the skin is numb. But's it's hard to correct those thoughts sometimes. Cesaire had been my confidant for so long. When my mother sent me to bed without supper for misbehaving, he always smuggled up buckwheat biscuits to me, then would ruffle my hair affectionately. He was the one who taught me how to tie my first snare; he was my instructor on the medicinal uses of the herbs in the vast woods surrounding Daggerhorn. In spite of everything, I know he loved me. And for a time I loved him, too. But it's just so disorienting to try to look past all the hatred I have towards him and acknowledge the redeeming qualities, if there are any. Father or not, I'd be just as evil as him if I accepted the life of a murder over countless lives of innocents. All I pray for these days is that Cesaire is burning in Hell for what he's done.

That doesn't mean I'm proud of myself for killing him. There are still so many mornings I wake up trembling and sweaty, my throat constricted from watching myself stab my father in the heart with Solomon's dismembered hand over and over again. In an old bread box wrapped in one of my grandmother's quilts is one of Solomon's silver fingernails. Once my father's eyes were closed forever, I pried it out of his torso, the red of blood glistening on my fingers. I find it amusing that werewolves have red blood like a human's. Shouldn't they have blood as black as ink to expose them as the demons they really are?

I wasn't alone. If Peter hadn't been there, my father undoubtedly would have bitten me. As his only offspring, he wanted to transform me into a werewolf (connotation for monster) to strengthen the werewolf blood that coursed through my veins. With each passing generation in our family, every werewolf that was created became more rampant, more powerful, more rabid than the last. The incisors elongated, the claws curved into serrated scythes, and the new werewolf was born into an insurmountable thirst for the brackish taste of blood. It didn't matter whether you were male or female. All that was necessary to burden a child with the opportunity to become an even more savage werewolf was a single bite during the Blood Moon. Peter saved me. I still remember him barreling through the front door of my grandmother's house, breathless from sprinting through rough terrain, his dark clothing rumpled. He had lunged at Cesaire dauntlessly with an axe. And in protecting me he was bitten.

I am to blame for Peter getting Cursed. I ponder why he choose to sacrifice himself over me. I was merely a pretty girl with luscious velvet lips and delicate blonde eyelashes like the clipped wings of a butterfly. I can't deny that I didn't love him. In fact, I still do. There is not a day that I don't crave his touch, those physical sensations that make eyes shut and heads tip back and backs arch and toes curl and mouths gasp. From the time we could both walk we had been best friends. He taught me how to swim and I showed him how to roast a badger. I could tell him anything, like how I wished I could fly. He used to tease me and press if I would give him flying lessons. Whenever I said yes to this request, I was always completely serious. There wasn't one thing or place I didn't want to share with him.

He promised he loved me, too. And all I can muster the courage to admit lying naked on my grandmother's bedroom floor is that he must have really, truly loved me to be willing to accept a life of shame and exile. I wasn't the one who exiled him. If anything I was the one who begged him to stay, but his decision was made long before those words tumbled from my lips. He insisted he was too dangerous, that he had to learn to control this new Curse to protect me.

When he told me he was leaving, I was so riddled with anxiety that I frantically assembled a suicide plan in my mind. I think it involved me vaulting off of Idris Falls. Though it had never been in my nature to practice cowardice, I had felt like there was no other valid option. Except for my mother, all of those I loved were gone from my life, like pollen shifted from the leaves by a spring breeze. A life without Peter wasn't a life worth living. He was all I had, and he was already several meters across a frigid, bottomless lake in a rickety cedar rowboat. Of course I could've killed myself by jumping into the water and dying of hypothermia. But Peter would have just dived in right after me. I was already too selfish, I wasn't going to take another life.

Peter must had seen the desperation in my eyes. Hastily, he promised me he would return. The sentiments were reciprocated as I made a vow that I would wait for him, no matter how long it took. I would learn patience. I remember wanting to kiss him so badly, even though we'd already had our bittersweet moment of warmth in the snow. The desire had clawed at my throat like a wild animal, but I swallowed it. I kissed my fingers and extended them to Peter, my mouth pursing to form the silent words of _I love you_. As his eyes twinkled with laughter, betraying his adoration that I so often thought was feigned, I knew he would return. When he did, he'd have my heart and soul in tow.

The blood from my open cuts is dripping on the floor. Within an hour there is already a fair sized puddle of congealed crimson liquid under my elbow. When I shift from my curled fetal position to sitting upright, I accidently drag my hand through the blood. It feels lukewarm and watery on my skin. I stagger to my feet quickly, my head swimming with vertigo from the sudden movement. It takes me a minute before I stop seeing black stars.

Though sleep is supposed to refresh your body and mind, I have never felt more exhausted. Nightmares dissolve all my energy, to the point where it's sometimes impossible to force my eyes open. But I'm afraid to curl up in that bed again, even though the sheets and hay-stuffed pillows still carry my grandmother's woodsy smell, the fragrance of home and serenity. With my mind spinning far and wide, I would never be able to fall back to sleep again anyway. Most days I have to plunder through swaying on my feet with violet crescents beneath my eyes. Even if I could sleep, why would even want to? Sleep undisturbed from creepy crawlies is as rare as a Blood Moon.

I open the chest at the foot of my grandmother's bed. When I took refuge at her house, I renovated it completely, moving furniture about and stuffing freshly picked wild flowers - blue, yellow, and violet - in every dusty nook and cranny. Until the wooden planks were splintered and eroded down to the pulp, I scrubbed the section of floor where my grandmother's slit throat had spewed blood everywhere. I didn't want to see her blood. I can't can't can't picture how she was brutally slaughtered like livestock infested with vermin. I love her too much, so I also can't bear to live in a house where everything was untouched, like she still lived there. Because if it was exactly how she left it, then I would start to believe she was coming back. It's surprising what fantasies mad people can come up with when they are alone and don't have other people to tell them what's real and not real.

I consider myself on the brink of insanity and sanity. It's quite confusing, but there are days where I have pristine coherency of the world around me, where I can get out of bed, get dressed, eat, and act completely normal. Then there are those other days where I stay cocooned in my grandmother's quilt drifting through illusions. I walk through other worlds, other dimensions, where I see the contented smiles of my deceased family and friends. I always thought the dead lived in a gloomy cosmos, with a sky as grey as charcoal and a barren landscape devoid of animals. But whenever I visit them, they are always living out their existence in a tranquil and sunny paradise. They beckon me into their soft embraces, as wispy and light as a mild summer breeze. They try to encourage me to stay. I cry cry cry that I want to, but I can't discover the bravado to slit my throat and join them. Because of Peter. Because of the promise I made to him that I would wait for him. I can imagine the betrayed and shattered expression on his face when he discovers my corpse. I can't do it.

But sometimes I want to scream and hit Peter for forcing me to stay alive with only a tendril of hope that he may return sometime in the future. Doesn't he know how much I miss him? How alone and miserable I am? I try to tell him this. When the moon is on the brink of full, I'll meditate under its wane light, mentally communicating my thoughts when his senses are at his keenest as the Wolf. It's not likely that he hears me, but I still pray he can intercept these words out of the air like snowflakes. Yet I hope he already knows that I love him and want him to come back without me saying anything.

Inside my grandmother's chest are only a few nondescript dresses assembled from frayed pastel fabrics. I threw away all of my grandfather's clothes because he, too, was a werewolf. And I hated that rancid Wolf smell that tainted the supple leather of his trousers and the coarse wool of his shirts. Like my father, he also lied to my grandmother about who he really was. He tortured Daggerhorn, swore to slaughter the entire village if they did not sacrifice a child every year on the night of the Lunar Eclipse. It couldn't be just any villager, it had to be a virtuous soul who had committed no sin. On the morning of the Lunar Eclipse, The Reeve of Daggerhorn would pry away the youngest infant from its mother's arms. If the mother didn't participate she was bound and gagged and left stranded in the woods, vulnerable to the predators that prowled at night. (One poor woman was found by a group of hunters with her eyes pecked out.) The child would then be bathed in lamb's blood, swathed in ceremonial blankets, and placed on an alter in the heart of the village. Until the moon was at its peak, the entire village would sit in their homes, waiting, their nerves on a precipice. When the Wolf finally emerged from its cloak of night shadows, the cacophony of the baby's cries would reverberate against the walls of Daggerhorn's wattle and daub homes. The Wolf showed no mercy or hesitation as it lunged and ripped the baby's throat out, gore splattering its muzzle.

None of the villagers cried for the child. All of them sat huddled behind their chiffarobes, children tucked under their arms, grateful to be spared. The only tears shed were that of a relieved terror. When the red-yellow sunrise was splattered across the sky like a bloody egg yolk, the villagers' fear slowly extinguished. In a uniform wave, they would venture out of the security of their tightly barricaded homes and examine the carnage of the Lunar Eclipse's bloodshed. The Wolf had taken the child with him. There were no body parts to grieve over, not even a lock of hair. All that remained were the ceremonial blankets saturated with blood.

My grandmother recited these terrible stories to me through her own memory. By doing so she believed she was warning me of the constant danger our village lived under. If only she knew back then that the very monster stealing the lives of children slept next to her every night. I didn't know my grandfather well. I can hardly recollect the slight curvature of his nose, the dark eyebrows as bushy as caterpillars, and a gape-toothed smile. He told everyone that the reason for his missing teeth was from picking fights with rambunctious village boys. While that may be true for Daggerhorn's violent tendencies, I know there was once an attack where a brave butcher cracked his meat cleaver against the Wolf's jaw, knocking some teeth loose.

My grandfather terrorized the village for thirty years. And when he began to age, his hair tinted with silver, he bit his son during the Blood Moon. Even from Cesaire's vague description of his father, I know my grandfather laughed when my father screamed in agony as his bones elongated and relocated during his first Change. Though he looked it, my grandfather was not a kind man. He was arrogant, snarky, presumptuous, and greedy. I don't think my father started out corrupt. He must have learned from his father. My grandfather pushed his son beyond his limits, berated him and called him useless whenever he showed weakness. Eventually, my father was mutated into the ultimate monster, sure there was nothing more rewarding than proving his authority over people. In other words, he became his father.

Though he never confessed to the crime, I know Cesaire murdered my grandfather. I remember one day where he was gone from dawn to dusk, using the alibi that he was hiking over to Calyoptis Precipice to determine the spring migration of elk from the south. His lie was not really transparent, as he did this at every oncoming snow melt. And except for my family and close friends, no one noticed his absence. Cesaire was more of a shadow than a man to the folk of Daggerhorn - a taciturn woodcutter who earned just enough income to glean his family by. Besides, those who knew him would never assume he could stoop to so much contempt to murder his own kin. Anyhow, there was no evidence to suggest foul play from Cesaire or my grandfather. One morning my grandmother just awoke to an unmade bed, a stale and cold vacancy from the opposite side of the indented mattress. The way the villagers tell it my grandfather just slept walk into the woods, encircled in a trance, and was never to be seen again. Frankly, I think this is bullshit, but people believe what they want to.

Looking back on it, I don't think it could be considered a coincidence that Cesaire's departure was impeccably synchronized with my grandfather's disappearance. I must have known this back then, too. But I was only a naïve twelve-year-old, with arms as scrawny as a turkey's neck and a wishy-washy thought process. In my adolescent world, light was dark, and good was bad. I didn't want to suspect the worst of an idol I had always cherished, so I pretended to be ignorant to the livid passion in Cesaire's eyes, the tense coil of his muscles as if he were about to spring into a fight.

Daggerhorn's best men searched the woods for my grandfather. From the first splinter of silver dawn to the last wink of daylight, they would plod out into the vast woods equipped with quivers loaded with silver-wrought arrows, water canteens, iron longswords, and dried deer jerky. This became a daily routine for over a month, until the full moon. At that point, The Reeve, supported by the majority of the village, proclaimed my grandfather a dead man. Their logic was that he either had starved to death already or the Wolf would have gotten to him. My father braved this news with a brusque nod. And when Father Auguste had visited our house to offer his condolences, I remember how apathetic my father was: the masquerade of a guilty man.

The memorial held to commemorate my grandfather was a menial occasion, hardly worthy of remembrance. It took place at the heart of Daggerhorn, and less than half the village bothered to make an appearance. Redundant speeches of how my grandfather was a "respectable man" were exchanged (no one knew what to say), dirt was crumbled over his grave, and the family laid the deceased relative to eternal rest with curt farewells.

No one has visited his grave since, and no one ever will.

Rummaging through my grandmother's chest, I extract a sage-green wool dress so faded from constant exposure to the elements its identical to sycamore bark. There's a tear in the left sleeve near the elbow and a tea stain splattered on the collar. Though it may be unpretentious and slightly dingy, it's still completely functional for a stroll through the woods.

I press the rough-hewn fabric to my nose, inhaling its aroma deeply. This dress used to be my grandmother's. When she died, I abandoned Daggerhorn and moved into her house nestled deeply in the woods. I had no longer felt secure in a place that had once been my safe haven. On the evening of my departure, I didn't bother with goodbyes to anyone, not even my mother. It was better that she think I was slaughtered by the Wolf rather than I had left her. The only possessions I smuggled with me were the very clothes on my back, including the scarlet cloak my grandmother assembled for me out of velvet tapestries bartered from a travelling merchant.

It's been two years and no one's ever come looking for me. I know there was some part of them that cared about me, even though they believed I was a witch. When the Wolf wished to take me away with him, the people I had always called friends stood for me on my behalf, threatening their lives for mine. Though they had offered me as bait to the Wolf's desires merely moments before, I was still oddly touched by their bravado. Daggerhorn is renown for it's sniveling cowards, so it was out of orthodox for the villagers' moral compass to secede their narcissism. But it did, and I'm alive today because of it.

The dress balled in my fist, I stand in front of the narrow brass-gilt mirror leaning on the wall next to the doorframe, inspecting my pale naked body sullied with the ridges and valleys of scars. In the far right corner, the mirror itself has a spindly spider web work of cracks that splinters its smooth surface. The top of the frame is chiseled with the head of a snarling timber wolf, its licentious eyes embossed in deep-set sockets, teeth bared in hostility. It' no surprise that this mirror belonged to my grandfather.

I nudge a porcelain chamber pot aside with my toe. I can practically see the tendrils of stink rising from its contents, its stagnant reek burning the insides of my nostrils. I gag, swallowing back vomit. It's way overdue for another dumping. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why do I always forgot these things until they're colliding with my face in a waft of decay and human excrement?

For the time being I throw a rag over the pot to hopefully stifle some of the unpleasant odor. It takes a couple seconds before I'm able to breathe deeply again. I don't bother to glance at my reflection in the mirror, because I know what I see is all a lie. Physically, I'm an entire unit, whole and young and competent to handle the opportunities lurking on the horizon. I'm beautiful, something some girls can't say about themselves. But, truthfully, I'm in pieces. I've been this way since Peter left. I know he never would have wanted this. To his knowledge, he left behind a sane Valerie, a strong woman who could live independently without drifting aimlessly in her mind. Sometimes I'm that girl, but I know he would still be disappointed.

But all this time alone in the woods has helped me come to some irrevocable conclusions. What Peter wouldn't understand (or even listen to) is that falling apart is so, so much easier than holding everything together. And now that everything's broken, I'm going to need double the effort to put all those pieces back together. I'm going to need him, but I'm so sad sad sad and lonely lonely lonely that I can't imagine ever feeling happy again. That includes no future with Peter.

I'm on the verge of a full-blown panic attack, but I hastily collect my nerves, shifting to a more pleasant cache of thoughts. As I dress, I think about how I could capture the incandescence of the sun over the stark treeline. Recently, I've taken up the hobby of painting. I'll admit, I'm nowhere near short of an artist, but the tranquil routine of stroking a brush against canvas is soothing. I even make my own paints. The materials I meld together for paints have no restriction, ranging from bird feathers, to leaves, to dirt. To make the boldest of reds I'll simmer red clay in a kettle with water and bits of mica for a shimmering effect.

Today I'll keep my eyes out for some mountain laurel so I can experiment with purple hues.

Even in my thermal dress and undergarments, I'm shivering, goosebumps prickling along the contours of my arms. My hand instinctively reaches out for my crimson cloak before my brain responds. I'm tugging my arms through the two holes in the folds of the fabric, tugging the cloak taut against my body. It instantly quells the malevolent voices of the green-eyed monsters in the shadows of my mind. Absently, I comb my fingers through my hair, yanking out a few too many knots. The rest of my morning routine goes by in a blur. Lukewarm porridge as flavorless as sod. Supple leather boots protecting bare feet from splintered floorboards weathered like ancient bones from decades of winter. The stoking of a hearth fire to keep the house warm throughout my absence.

After I grab a basket composed of durable, tightly-woven grass, I plod out of my grandmother's home, shutting the door tightly behind me to prevent any escape of warm, hazel-scented heat. (I'm roasting nuts for dinner) With vigorous eyes, I absorb the outdoors fringing my grandmother's home. Twenty years of living in this providence and I still haven't become accustomed to its natural beauty. The lithe limbs of evergreens sashay in the gentle morning breeze, the dark green of the leaves bleached into an emerald color when the sun reflects off their glossy surfaces. Several paces away from the front stoop of the cottage is a small gurgling stream, twisting through the grass like a silver ribbon. This is where I get all of my water from (for washing, drinking, bathing). It's hell of a lot easier then hiking three miles through dense forest to get to the nearest glacial spring. Not to mention you don't have to tap through an inch of sheet ice to actually get to the water.

Wild flowers of all kinds embellish the mossy forest floor, growing between fissures of solid boulders of granite, or on the decaying bark of fallen trees consumed by lichen. Most of these flowers I can distinguish by the shape of their leaves, the color of the petals, and their fragrance (some don't smell like anything). The astounding accuracy of which I can identify these wild flowers is as if I can simply pull a name from my brain like a book off of a dusty shelf. Out of the diversity of different shrubs, I spot a cluster of trillium grandiflorum. Their blooms begin as snowy white, but as the season passes, the flower will darken to a pink. This trillium must be fairly young, because its tips are just beginning to change color. On branches of the highest deciduous trees, lady slipper orchids are already in full bloom despite the recent arrival of spring; they're one of my favorites because of the peculiar shape of their petals. A vivacious tint of mulberry, the flower itself only has a single petal, a distended pouch like a pregnant woman's belly in the third trimester. The small, bright yellow blossoms of spicebush are perched on the waxy fingers of shrubs, easily accessible because of their low proximity to the ground.

I cut my eyes away from the display of vibrant wild flowers. Most people assume that because the mountains are so arctic, their steep slopes are nothing more than a desolate tundra. How they could ever be so mistaken. The mountains are a cornucopia of life, though the grueling winters do rob them of most of their color. But when spring comes, every toe or finger lost from frostbite is worth it. You become absorbed into a masterpiece of the most talented artist. Everything has a burnished appearance, as if the colors are painted with oil paints, and the hunks of silver-streaked marble scattered throughout the forest look like they could be bits of the moon fallen to Earth. I'm sure these mountains are what keep me from teetering into complete insanity. Even the bleakest of mountain winters can't break my spirit.

I begin walking under the forest canopy at a moderate pace. These lands are as familiar to me as the back of my hand, so where most people would have to slowly pick their way through the jagged terrain, I dodge all sorts of jutting-out tree limbs with the ease of my grandmother threading a needle. I'm aware of every twist in the path, of every root snaking across the forest floor prepared to trip me, so I make rapid progress. By noon, I'm standing on the dock where I said my goodbyes to Peter.

Using my hands to balance, I sit on my knees, my crimson cloak spread around me in a semi-circle like a puddle of blood. When I detach my hands from the rough-hewn wood of the dock, I notice there are an average of three splinters in each finger. They don't sting at first, but then I'm picking at each of them, trying to pry them out. I realize in frustration that they've lodged themselves under my skin like ticks. Pinching and digging in my tender skin with the blunt ends of my nails hurts, but I won't stop because I can't have anything under my skin. No, I can't. No matter how much I try to reassure myself, I keep hallucinating that those splinters are Solomon's silver fingernails. And they're burning burning burning me because I'm the daughter of the werewolf and I deserve it because I made Peter a monster, too. I'm the reason so many people are dead. It's my fault my fault my fault.

On the brink of hysteria, I blink back tears, still picking and picking. Only when the first drop of blood is shed does my anxiety begin to alleviate. I feel instantly better the more I bleed, as if a crushing weight is removed from my chest. I can breathe again. With a sadistic enthusiasm, I dig my fingernails into my palms with so much pressure that it leaves behind five bloody crescents. I do this several more times, pinching the wounds so more blood oozes out.

After my palms are streaked with ribbons of blood, I relax, the urges of self-harm all but evaporated. I have control over my body again. In my lap I clasp my hands together. My gaze jumps from the dock, which is damp and slick with patches of ice in some parts, to the expansive lake. Its tranquil surface reminds me of my grandmother's mirror, flat and smooth until a pebble breaks the surface in resonating ripples. Tips of glaciers loom over the water like the bulwark of a ship, an alabaster white with a peculiar blue sheen. The horizon is just a hazy thumbprint on glass, the terrain of the grey splotches of land in the distance indistinguishable. I don't know anything about what's beyond the mountains, except that Peter's there.

Mentioning Peter in my thoughts has a snowball effect. Once I begin thinking about him, my thoughts become harder to process, growing larger and heavier to manage the farther downhill the ball rolls. I wonder if he still thinks about me. Does he wake up in the morning imagining me groggy next to him, hair riddled with bedhead and eyelids heavy? Does he still crave the amorous intimacy we once shared? There isn't a moment that I don't. I remember with astounding clarity Peter's lips, the warmth of his breath on my neck, and how every time he caressed me my skin was on fire. No one's ever made me feel a love so intense in that way.

But then the ghosts of my past materialize, reminding of everything that's happened, what Peter's become. The last time I saw him was weeks before his first Change. For all I know, he could be a completely different person. Every fiber of me refutes this theory, clinging on to the simple truth that Peter and I love each other like a stubborn child. I know (or at least intensely hope) that our raw adoration for each other prevailed over every dark facet of the Curse.

But I can't dismantle the intoxicating image of Peter with his hands on another girl. She doesn't have a face in the illusion, but she is a slender brunette with large breasts and a curvy figure. I'm not really fixated on the girl. Instead, my attention is absorbed with Peter. He is as handsome as usual, his untidy dark hair and bright, mischievous eyes exposing him as the miscreant he really is, but everything is wrong because he's unfaithful unfaithful unfaithful. He promised he would come back to me, but here he is in bed with someone more beautiful, enjoying the company of someone more "attuned" to his needs. Under the dim lighting of the paltry inn room, his olive-toned skin gleams like polished bronze. His eyes... are amber wolf eyes, pupils dilated. Before I can scream to the girl to run, he bares his incisors, lurches forward, and rips out her throat with his powerful jaw. She makes a horrible gurgling noise, blood gushing from the lethal wound like a mountain spring, then goes limp. Peter glowers down at her carcass inquisitively, almost amused. Licking the gore from his lips, his only comment is: "The blood doesn't really match the blue in this quilt."

I'm biting down on my lip so hard I can taste the sharp copper tang of blood mingling with my saliva. And the world feels like its spinning spinning spinning, the entire planet knocked off its axis. I think I might vomit, but I bottle that nauseous feeling and stuff it down where it won't bother me. I'm rubbing my temples with my index and middle fingers until there is only one dock. The sun is beginning to sink behind the precipice of the tallest peak. Only two hours until nightfall. And the tragic part is that I'm already so taxed but I still have a four mile hike home. Sighing wearily, I collect my basket, straighten my cloak, and quickly nibble on stale bread for a quick burst of energy for the trip back.

As I'm climbing from the dock onto solid ground, a husky voice implores, "Valerie?" Startled, I leap back with a jolt, but I'm quickly exhaling in relief when I identify the speaker. His eyes are a beautiful toffee, compassionate and fair. Round and dull with a grim wariness, he has the stare of an innocent who has seen to much treachery, but refuses to lose hope for the world.

The sentence rolls hesitantly off my tongue: "Hello, Henry."


End file.
